The present invention relates to an adsorptive filtering material with integrated particle and/or aerosol protection and with protective performance with regard to biological and/or chemical noxiants, in particular biological and/or chemical warfare agents, as classified in the preamble of patent claim 1 and to its use, in particular for producing protective materials of any kind, in particular NBC protective apparel, and also filters and filtering materials of any kind. The present invention further relates to the protective materials, in particular protective apparel (for example NBC protective garments), and also filters and filtering materials themselves that are produced using the adsorptive filtering material of the present invention.
There are a number of entities which are absorbed by the skin and lead to serious physical noxae. Examples include the vesicatory Hd (also known as Yellow Cross and mustard gas) and the nerve gas sarin. People liable to come into contact with such poisons have to wear a suitable protective suit, or be protected against these poisons by suitable protective materials.
There are in principle three types of protective suits: the air and water vapor impervious protective suits, which are equipped with a rubber layer which is impervious to biological and chemical poisons, and very rapidly lead to a heat build-up for the wearer; protective suits equipped with a membrane which transmits water vapor but not biological and chemical poisons; and air and water vapor pervious protective suits, which offer the highest wear comfort.
NBC protective apparel is thus traditionally produced either from impermeable systems (for example suits from butyl rubber or suits with membrane) or permeable, air pervious adsorptive filtering systems in particular based on activated carbon (for example pulverulent carbon, activated carbon fiber materials or spherocarbon, etc.).
Whereas the air impervious membrane suits lead on the one hand to relatively good protection against chemical and biological poisons such as warfare agents or the like, and on the other, owing to the air imperviousness or impermeability of the membrane, also offer protective performance with regard to aerosols and noxiant particles, the permeable, air pervious adsorptive protective suits do offer very good protection in relation to chemical poisons, but often only inadequate protection in relation to aerosols and noxiant particles.
To improve biological protection, the permeable, adsorptive filtering systems, in particular based on activated carbon, are often endowed with a catalytically active component, or a catalyst, by impregnating the activated carbon with a biocidal or biostatic catalyst, in particular based on metals or metal compounds. However, this does not solve the problem of poor protective performance with regard to noxiant aerosols (for example finely dispersed chemical noxiants, in particular warfare agents) or noxiant particles (for example noxiant microorganisms or microorganisms fixed on carrier particles, for example viruses or bacteria used as biological warfare agents).